Quebec minister lashes out against plans to bring Alberta oil to province

Quebec minister Daniel Breton: Alberta oil may not be welcome

MONTREAL – Quebec’s environment minister is expressing reservations about private-sector plans to import crude from Alberta’s oil sands to Montreal refineries, insisting Quebec will retain sovereignty over its land no matter what is decided by federal regulators.

Speaking to reporters in Quebec City Wednesday, Daniel Breton would not say outright if his Parti Québécois minority government opposes plans by Enbridge Inc. and TransCanada Corp. to ship Alberta oil eastward to Montreal. Rather, he attempted to flex a little muscle by saying nothing will move forward without Quebec’s blessing.

There are some environmental risks with oil . . . This is a question of protecting the environment that’s on our territory

“There are some environmental risks with oil,” said Mr. Breton, a former environmental activist who helped found Quebec’s Parti Vert. “Given what happened [on the Kalamazoo River] in Michigan, we can’t take this lightly…. This is a question of protecting the environment that’s on our territory.”

A pipeline belonging to Calgary-based Enbridge ruptured at that location in 2010 in a spill the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency later estimated at larger than one million U.S. gallons. Cleanup costs have topped US$585-million.

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Enbridge is planning a significant expansion of its pipelines that carry crude from the oil sands and the Bakken shale oil field to refineries in central Canada and the U.S. Midwest. The plan, called Eastern Access, involves reversing and maybe expanding a 240,000 barrel-per-day pipeline now carrying imported oil from Montreal to Sarnia, Ont.

The National Energy Board has approved Step 1 of the proposal, involving a section between Sarnia and North Westover, Ont. Enbridge hasn’t yet submitted Step 2, which involves the reversal of the 900-kilometre pipeline section to Montreal, for federal review but has done open houses along the right of way in Ontario and Quebec.

It’s highly likely the energy board will request public hearings on the project before making a decision, said Enbridge spokesman Graham White. Mr. Breton, meanwhile, insisted Quebec consultations would take place. He did not specify what body would oversee that process.

“I do understand that there is this perception” in Quebec of Alberta oil as negative, Mr. White said. “But to me it seems to be much more beneficial for us to have that energy security, which is, by the way, why that line was originally built. It was to provide domestic energy security for Canada.”

Calgary-based TransCanada also has a plan centred on shipping oil to eastern Canada by converting parts of its underused Canadian Mainline system from natural gas to oil transportation.

The plan, which could see up to a million barrels of oil a day shipped to eastern markets starting around 2017, will be more formally tested with customers in the months to come.

Alex Pourbaix, the Trans-Canada executive in charge of energy and oil pipelines at the company, said Wednesday he did not expect a big environmental pushback against the plan. He said roughly 80% of the pipe required is already in the ground and even where it isn’t, rights of way with landowners have been secured.

Unlike Enbridge, which is not touting lower gasoline prices for eastern Canadians as a potential benefit of its project, Mr. Pourbaix insisted that “it doesn’t take a great leap of logic” to conclude that filling eastern refineries with domestic crude is better than importing pricier oil from other countries.

The bulk of Quebec’s oil now comes from overseas, shipped here by tanker. The province has never used oil sands petroleum.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, an industry lobby group, has been trying to counter the oil sands’ negative image in Quebec with television advertisements touting the benefits of the industry for local companies like Prevost Transport. The bus maker builds hundreds of coaches used to ferry workers in the oil sands region.